U.S. Spends $450,000 to Study ‘Evolution of Venom Proteins in Sea Anemones’

(CNSNews.com) – The National Science Foundation’s March 3 grant announcements includes a $450,000 taxpayer-funded grant to Ohio State University to study the “evolution of venom proteins in sea anemones.”

“Understanding the evolution of venom will impact our ability to predict the reactivity and function of venoms within the groups, but will also help us understand how interactions between organisms become codified in genes and how these genes change in response to changes in the organismal interactions,” says the description of the grant published by NSF.

The foundation’s budget request for fiscal year 2013 was $7.373 billion--up $340 million from the fiscal year 2012 request.

Responding to a question from CNSNews.com about how the foundation justifies spending tax dollars on this kind of study, spokeswoman Dana Topousis cited a memorandum issued Feb. 27 by NSF Director Subra Suresh.

The memo said funding for the foundation would be reduced by five percent under the budget cuts enacted in the Budget Control Act. In the memo, Suresh said the foundation’s goal while operating under the budget cuts would be threefold:To protect commitments to NSF’s core mission and maintain existing awards, protect the foundation’s workforce and protect STEM human capital development programs.

Topousis said the budget cuts would affect future awards.

“We receive more than 50,000 proposals per year, and fund about 11,000 of those,” Topousis said, adding that 1,000 less grants would be awarded in 2013.

“As you can imagine, that will have quite an impact on the research community in the United States,” Topousis said.